"Libby, no—your job?—"
"Do you really think the Steel is going to let me anywhere near their press box right now? Reid's already called me off the game. I'm heading to your place to pick you up. We'll drive to Mom and Dad's together."
"Libby, they had me clean out my office," Jane said quietly.
Libby's rage at Wickham crystallized into something sharp and deadly. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"How are we going to fix this?"
Libby didn't have an answer.
The Bennet-Cross family home in Springfield was in chaos when Libby and Jane arrived after the drive from Boston. They could hear their mother's voice from the driveway, shrill with panic.Inside, they found their father sitting in his study with his head in his hands, their mother wearing a path in the carpet, and Mary at the kitchen table with her laptop, presumably tracking the viral spread of the disaster.
"Where's Lydia?" Libby demanded.
"Gone," Robert said wearily. "She's not answering her phone. We don't know where she is."
"She left a note," Linda said, her voice breaking. "Said she was going away for a few days with Gray. That he was going to 'fix everything' and make her famous properly. She took her suitcase. Her passport. Libby, she's with him."
"When did she leave?"
"Sometime last night," Mary said quietly, turning her laptop toward Libby. "Based on her last Instagram story from the house. But look at this—someone's been using the OnlyFans page to do more than just post her content. There are conversations with gambling sites, offers to sell injury reports and insider tips using 'Lydia's' name. Screenshots of her supposedly providing information about Jane's patients, about your sources." She looked up, confused. "Lydia's an idiot about a lot of things, but she's no mastermind. This is sophisticated fraud."
"It's Wickham," Libby said flatly. "Gray Wickham did this." The guilt hit her with the force of a physical blow. She'd known. She'd had the whole truth from Liam for a week. But she'd been so wrapped up in her own drama—in the almost-kiss on the ice, in the actual kiss in the hallway, in what it all meant—that she never once thought to warn her sister. She'd been so focused on whether she was good enough for Liam's world, she'd failed to protect her family from the worst part of it.
"But he seemed like such a nice boy when I met him," Linda said weakly. "Very polite. Good manners."
"He has a history of this," Libby said, her voice tight. "He sold private information about Liam's sister to tabloids three years ago. Destroyed her figure skating career. This is exactly his pattern—he finds someone vulnerable, someone who'll trust him, and weaponizes their stupidity for revenge or profit."
Jane's hand found Libby's shoulder, understanding in her eyes.
"I didn't say anything," Libby said, her throat closing. "At dinner. I sat there and said nothing. I should have pulled her aside, told her everything."
"You couldn't have known he'd do this," Robert said, but his voice lacked conviction.
Jane squeezed Libby's shoulder. "Lydia wouldn't have listened anyway. You know how she is."
"And people think you're involved too," Mary added, looking at Libby. "Because of your relationship with Liam. They're saying the whole engagement was a cover for getting insider information."
"But she's still with him!" Linda wailed, cutting through their analysis. "She leftwithhim! What if he hurts her? What if he?—"
Jane let out a weary laugh. "We really should've known when she wrote 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' under 'religion' in sixth grade."
Despite everything, Libby felt a surprised laugh escape. "God, I forgot about that."
"Mrs. Henderson called Mom in for a conference," Jane said. "Mom tried to explain it was Lydia's sense of humor. Mrs. Henderson was not amused."
"This isn't funny," Linda wailed. "She's out there somewhere with that man who's destroyed our family! What if the police come here? What if reporters show up?"
"With insider gambling involved, we'll be lucky if federal agents don't show up at our door," Robert said grimly. "I'm going to call our lawyer."
"We have a lawyer?" Kitty asked.
"We do now," Robert said, already pulling out his phone. "Let's hope he remembers me from high school."
Libby's phone buzzed in her pocket. Liam's name lit up the screen.
She stared at it, her thumb hovering over the answer button. In Montreal, warmups would start soon. He should be in the locker room right now, in that pre-game headspace she'd watched him cultivate. Not calling her.
